for the people who had erected barricades, and that would be to manifest their will a second time, and so adjourn the decisions of a representation that was not national.”  This was nothing more nor less than the language of another Fructidor.  And we know what was the result of words in those days.  The Bulletin was dated the 15th, and on the 17th the people were on the way to the Hotel de Ville.  These popular movements cannot always be trusted, though, as they frequently take an unexpected turn, and even change their direction when on the way.  It happened this time that the manifestation turned against those who were its instigators.  Shouts were heard that day in Paris of "Death to the Communists" and "Down with Cabet.”  George Sand could not understand things at all.  This was not in the programme, and she began to have her doubts about the future of the Republic—­the real one, that of her friends.

It was much worse on the 15th of May, the day which was so fatal to Barbes, for he played the part of hero and of dupe on that eventful day.  Barbes was George Sand’s idol at that time.

It was impossible for her to be without one, although, with her vivid imagination, she changed her idols frequently.  With her idealism, she was always incarnating in some individual the perfections that she was constantly imagining.  It seems as though she exteriorized the needs of her own mind and put them into an individual who seemed suitable to her for the particular requirements of that moment.  At the time of the monarchy, Michel of Bourges and Pierre Leroux had been able to play the part, the former of a radical theorician and the latter of the mystical forerunner of the new times.  At present Barbes had come on to the scene.

He was a born conspirator, the very man for secret societies.  He had made his career by means of prisons, or rather he had made prison his career, In 1835, he had commenced by helping thirty of the prisoners of April to escape from Sainte-Pelagie.  At that time he was affiliated to the Societe des Familles.  The police discovered a whole arsenal of powder and ammunition at the house in the Rue de Lourcine, and Barbes was condemned to prison for a year and sent to Carcassonne, where he had relatives.  When he left prison, the Societe des Saisons had taken the place of the Societe des Familles.  With Blanqui’s approval, Barbes organized the insurrection of May 12 and 13, 1830.  This time blood was shed.  In front of the Palais de Justice, the men, commanded by Barbes, had invited Lieutenant Droulneau to let them enter.  The officer replied that he would die first.  He was immediately shot, but Barbes was sentenced to death for this.  Thanks to the intervention of Lamartine and Victor Hugo, his life was spared, but he was imprisoned at Mont Saint-Michel until 1843, and afterwards at Nimes.  On the 28th of February, 1848, the Governor of Nimes prison informed him that he was free.  He was more surprised and embarrassed than pleased by this news.